As he laying dying, pleading for his life and some assistance, a Tulsa cop told him to "fuck your breath".

There is a technical term for the Tulsa, Oklahoma police officer's "error" in shooting Eric Harris with his pistol instead of a somewhat less than always lethal taser: it is called "slips and capture".

I kid you not.

Interestingly, white men such as James Holmes who hurt and kill dozens of people in mass shootings are somehow captured alive.

But, black men who are unarmed are routinely killed by America's police.

I have a really bad feeling about this incident. Just as the murderers of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner and Tamir Rice escaped criminal charges embolden police officers like Michael Slager to murder unarmed black men like Walter Scott so too will the "accidental" killings of Akai Gurley and Eric Harris embolden police officers to murder black men if the police officers in question escape criminal charges. Imagine if police officers simply say "I'm sorry" after committing murder and then escape conviction for so much as gross negligence. Like I said, I have a bad feeling about this...

"Slip and capture" is but yet another ridiculous attempt to explain away this behavior to excuse it.

The other day the irrelevant, but for Fox, Geraldo Rivera explained that Scott's running caused Slager's "blood to boil" and when that happens, it cannot be murder because when a white man's (yes, white man; when have you ever heard such nonsense offered up even in cases of a black person being tried even in clear cases of self defense?) blood is a boiling, he is not responsible for whatever he does.

The purpose of these "explanations" fits in with the crap of people like Gutfield, who says blacks shouldn't be angry at these incidents. And why not? According to these people we're not human beings anyway. Our blood cannot "boil."

Call me cynical but I got a bad feeling about it as well. Slager's new attorney is one who specializes in defending cops in cases like this, and given his record and the history of juries being reluctant to indict, let alone convict, odds are Slager will walk on a straight acquittal or a plea deal in which he avoids jail time.

I do believe the city will end up settling with the family in a civil trial. Unlike in the case of Ferguson officials, at least they have been willing to exhibit some sense of humanity and empathy towards the family.

But all of that is little consolation to the Scott family, I'm sure. Not to mention the rest of us who are just sick and tired of this stuff.

Chauncey, you've gotta see the videos at the link! This guy, a self-proclaimed redneck former racist cristallizes everything you've been saying for years passionately and articulately:https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCxrwoWJ8cYyW9U8Fik7yATw/feed

Chauncey - a few days ago you posed the question "How will White Conservatives Defend The Killer Cop Who Shot Walter Scott." In the comments, some folks pointed out that it wouldn't be long before Mr. Scott's background was shredded and he was embedded in the "monstrous black male" narrative.

They were absolutely correct.

Since then, racist conservatives (probably an oxymoron) have resorted to their usual despicable dogma of deflection - the notorious "WAIT FOR/ASSESSMENT OF THE FACTS," i.e. in which they analyze every minutiae of the "controversial" incident in order to scrape up some kind of legitimate excuse for the objectively inexcusable actions of the officer, as if police officers are flawless individuals who exist in some fantasy land of "goodness" totally separate from the biases of the society they live in.

See the following "explanation" below, in which some self-righteous twit (and poor crafter of argument) has decided that Slager should be acquitted because Mr. Scott tried to take his taser (as Slager was trying to taser him, this is not surprising), and because of some imaginary conspiracy to activate the "Black Grievance Industry." The punishment for this, in the eyes of this individual, is apparently an utterly callous and disrespectful execution. The time it took this person to dream up and piece together this breathless defense of an unfeeling murderer is all the evidence we need to know that black people in this country, and black men in particular, are the collective bogeymen of white America, that their deaths are simply the result of an inherent criminality, and can never be labeled unjust.

I realize my comment isn't directly related to the murder of Eric Harris, but the point being that the same tactics used to discredit the obvious truth in the Walter Scott murder will undoubtedly be deployed here. We need only wait.

Talk about blood boiling -- I can hardly describe the depth of antipathy I feel for that POS Geraldo Rivera. I always thought he was a stupid clown, but that turned into disgust, contempt and revulsion. Fortunately, I rarely watch TV anymore so I don't see him because I would want to reach through the screen and punch his smarmy face.

I suppose you may have seen by now the video of the brawl in the parking lot of the Cottonwood, AZ WalMart. Eight white people start whaling on some cops responding to a call of an assault on a WalMart employee, and the cops don't even draw their weapons until one of the brawlers get one of the cops' weapons and shoot him. Cops end up shooting one of the eight people.

I saw it, and it was amazing. Those white "Christians" had to brawl and fight with the cops and take a gun for real before one of 'em got shot. Had they been black it would have been a "riot" and wouldn't have gotten that far before the cops started "fearing for their lives."

Tips and Support Are Always Welcome

Who is Chauncey DeVega?

I have been a guest on the BBC, National Public Radio, Ring of Fire Radio, Ed Schultz, Sirius XM's Make it Plain, Joshua Holland's Alternet Radio Hour, the Thom Hartmann radio show, the Burt Cohen show, and Our Common Ground.

I have also been interviewed on the RT Network and Free Speech TV.

I am a contributing writer for Salon and Alternet.

My writing has also been featured by Newsweek, The New York Daily News, Raw Story, The Huffington Post, and the Daily Kos.

My work has also been referenced by MSNBC, The Washington Post, The Christian Science Monitor, the Associated Press, Chicago Sun-Times, Raw Story, The Washington Spectator, Media Matters, The Gothamist, Fader, XOJane, The National Memo, The Root, Detroit Free Press, San Diego Free Press, the Global Post, as well as online magazines and publications such as The Atlantic, Slate, The Week, The New Republic, Buzzfeed, Counterpunch, Truth-Out, Pacific Standard, Common Dreams, The Daily Beast, The Washington Times, The Nation, RogerEbert.com, Ebony, and The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Fox News, Breitbart, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Juan Williams, Herman Cain, Alex Jones, World Net Daily, Twitchy, the Free Republic, the National Review, NewsBusters, the Media Research Council, Project 21, and Weasel Zippers have made it known that they do not like me very much.